Academy Member Reese Witherspoon "Would Love to See a More Diverse Voting Membership" at the Oscars

Wild star addresses #OscarsSoWhite

By Francesca Bacardi Jan 22, 2016 2:56 PMTags
Reese Witherspoon, Oscars 2013Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Academy Award-winner and member of The Academy Reese Witherspoon also has found the voting membership flawed.

The Wild star took to Facebook Thursday to share a Time article that she felt summarized the Oscars diversity issue very well. In sharing the piece, Witherspoon also added her own thoughts about the ongoing controversy and revealed that she also wants to see more diversity in the nominations.

"I really appreciated this article in TIME on the lack of racial and gender diversity in this year's Oscar nominations," she wrote on the social media site. "So disappointed that some of 2015's best films, filmmakers and performances were not recognized... Nothing can diminish the quality of their work, but these filmmakers deserve recognition.

"As an Academy member, I would love to see a more diverse voting membership."

Witherspoon won a Best Actress Oscar in 2005 for her role in Walk the Line and received a nomination at last year's Academy Awards for her role in Wild. The nominees in the top four categories at the 2015 Oscars in were also completely white.

She joins Jada Pinkett-Smith, Lupita Nyong'o, George Clooney, Mark Ruffalo, Spike Lee, Will Smith and many more who have spoken out about the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. The uproar in lack of nominations for Concussion, Straight Outta Compton, Creed and more apparently has caught the attention of The Academy, who the New York Times claims is going to make changes to the process as early as next week.

Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs spoke out shortly after the nominations were announced that she was "heartbroken" over the results. "Of course I am disappointed," she told Deadline. "But this is not to take away the greatness (of the films nominated). This has been a great year in film, it really has across the board."

However, she added, "You are never going to know what is going to appear on the sheet of paper until you see it," and acknowledged that the efforts at more diversity for the Academy are moving too slowly. "We have got to speed it up."